| The London Studios | |
| Former Names: | The South Bank Television Centre |
| Alternate Names: | The ITV Studios London Television Centre ITV Towers LWT Tower LWT |
| Map Type: | United Kingdom London Lambeth#United Kingdom Greater London |
| Location Country: | England |
| Building Type: | Television studios |
| Location: | Lambeth, London |
| Address: | Upper Ground, London, SE1 9LT[1] |
| Owner: | ITV plc (2013–2019) Mitsubishi Estate London (2019–) |
| Coordinates: | 51.5073°N -0.1124°W |
| Start Date: | 1969 |
| Completion Date: | 1972 |
| Closing Date: | Studios closed 30 April 2018 |
| Demolition Date: | TBD |
| Altitude: | 850NaN0 |
| Floor Count: | 24 |
| Floor Area: | 2.5 acres |
| Main Contractor: | Higgs and Hill |
| Architect: | EPR Architects |
| Structural Engineer: | Clarke Nicholls and Marcel, Civil and Structural Engineers |
The London Studios (also known as The South Bank Studios, The London Television Centre, ITV Tower, Kent House and LWT Tower) in Lambeth, Central London was a television studio complex owned by ITV plc and originally built for London Weekend Television. The studios were located in Central London, on the South Bank next to the IBM Building and the Royal National Theatre. The building was set on 2.5 acres of land and was 24 floors high. The London Studios closed on 30 April 2018. Many ITV programmes now come from Television Centre in White City, London.
The facilities were the main studios for ITV, along with a number of production companies including ITV Studios and Shiver based in Kent House tower, while the studios were home to many entertainment, game and daytime shows. These included Good Morning Britain, The Graham Norton Show, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and The Jonathan Ross Show. The studios were also used for other programmes from various other channels including BBC Television and Channel 4. ITV Creative, which promotes programmes on the ITV network, was also based at the London Studios.
When LWT succeeded ATV as the London weekend ITV franchisee in 1968, it rented Associated-Rediffusion's old studios at Wembley (later known as The Fountain Studios) while plans for a new studio complex in central London were drawn up.
The chosen site stood beside the then new Royal National Theatre on the South Bank of the River Thames. It was bought in 1969, and construction work, awarded to Higgs and Hill, began in 1970. The centre opened for transmission in 1972, though it was not fully operational until 1974. The complex was owned by the pension fund of the National Coal Board and leased by the station. It was originally called The South Bank Television Centre (a name that lasted until the early 1990s) and at the time was the most advanced television centre in Europe.
On 28 January 2013 ITV plc finally bought the freehold of the now renamed London Television Centre for £56 million from what had become Coal Pension Properties.[2] [3] [4]
On social media, the building is named 'ITV Towers' since the purchase in January 2013. The official name of the building is The London Television Centre (with the studio business branded as 'The London Studios'), that being the logo in reception and around the building.
The site closed in April 2018 for demolition. Initially, ITV intended to redevelop the site with three smaller studios, but in October 2018 it announced it would not be returning to the South Bank, and the whole site would be redeveloped into premium housing.[5]
In November 2019, it was announced that ITV had reached an agreement to sell The London Studios for £145.6 million to Mitsubishi Estate London.[6] [7] New plans for the redevelopment of the site into a commercial development were revealed in February 2021.[8]
Kent House is a 24-storey tower block, and was home to ITV plc and many production offices including ITV Studios and Shiver Productions. During the 1990s the block was also home to Carlton Television and GMTV. It was seen in the titles of Good Morning Britain and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. The tower housed programme production offices, edit suites, dubbing suites, VTR studio booths and graphic booths.
Sandwiched between Kent House Tower and the River Thames is the main studio block, housing studios 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7, the restaurant, the takeaway bar (prior studio cafe), management offices, edit facilities, make-up and wardrobe. It was designed by London-based architecture practice Elsom Pack & Roberts.
On the east side of the site, there is a neighbouring building called Gabriel's Wharf. Previously belonging to Younger's Brewery, this three-storey building was added later to the site as a scenery store. When This Morning moved from Liverpool, the 3000square feet studio 8 was converted from the riverside end of the first storey. This area was on lease[9] from Coin Street Community Builders to ITV until 2018, when they left the premises.
There were a total of nine different studios during the complex's lifespan. By the time of closure there were six. There were weather studios producing the ITV national, and some of the network's regional forecasts at ITN's headquarters in Gray's Inn Road.
The studios were originally built by the London weekend ITV franchise holder, London Weekend Television (LWT). In 1991, Carlton Television won the London weekday franchise from Thames Television, but unlike Thames, Carlton had no studios of its own. Carlton rented space from The London Studios from 1993 for its own post-production and continuity facilities. This arrangement continued until 2002, when an agreement was reached for Carlton to be permanently based within space used by LWT; in the intervening years LWT had been taken over by Granada plc, and a close relationship had developed between Granada and Carlton. This led to consolidation within the ITV network and an agreement for the two to work together as ITV London.
Since 2002, all the ITV plc-owned regions' continuity before national programmes has been presented from the London Studios, as well as continuity before regional programmes in the following regions: Meridian, Westcountry, HTV West, Anglia, the non-franchise ITV Thames Valley region and since 2006 HTV Wales, although between 2002 and 2006 the Welsh station's continuity was recorded and sent electronically to London. The complex also housed the continuity of ITV plc's digital channels ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV. The site also handled the playout of all the above until 2007, when the service was outsourced to Technicolor Network Services (TNS) (now part of Ericsson). The play-out is now run from Ericsson's broadcast centre in Chiswick.
Ericsson now provides network feeds to transmission centres in Leeds (home of the Northern Transmission Centre, which was also originally taken over by TNS as part of the outsourcing deal) and Glasgow (STV).
See main article: ITV Studios. In 1994, Granada Group took over LWT and acquired the building. When ITV franchises were permitted to take one another over in the 1990s (which had previously been restricted), Carlton and Granada, between the two companies, eventually owned all the franchises in England and Wales. By the time the two companies merged in 2004, all of Carlton's studios had either been sold, or were surplus to requirements, so were sold soon after. Although the parent companies merged, and are now one (called ITV plc), Granada Television Ltd still exists as a subsidiary of ITV plc, and owns all ITV plc's studios (wholly in Leeds and London, and formerly as a joint venture with BBC Studios & Post Production in Manchester).
The studios produced the bulk of original ITV Studios' programmes, but anyone could hire the studios, so the studios were often seen on other channels' programmes.
The London Studios was home to many popular programmes. List of shows, studio used and network broadcast on below:
| Years | Programme | Channel | Studio |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972–1992 | LWT in-vision continuity | Studio 4 | |
| 1972–1975 | Upstairs, Downstairs | ITV | Studio 2 |
| 1972–1992 | The Big Match | Studio 5 | |
| 1972–1985 | World of Sport | ||
| 1977–2016 | It'll Be Alright On The Night | Studio 2 | |
| 1978–2010 | The South Bank Show | Studio 5 | |
| 1978–2012 | An Audience With... | Studio 1 | |
| 1980–1987, 1994–1999, 2002–2003 | Play Your Cards Right | ||
| 1981–1985 | Game for a Laugh | ||
| 1982–1988 | The 6 O'Clock Show | ||
| 1984–2001, 2003, 2012–15 | Surprise Surprise | ITV | |
| 1985–2003, 2017–2018 | Blind Date | ITV and Channel 5 | Studios 1 & 2 |
| 1988–1998 | Hale and Pace | ITV | Studio 1 |
| 1989–1992 | News & Six O'Clock Live | Studio 10 | |
| 1989–1991 | Sale of the Century | Sky One | Studio 1 |
| 1989–1994 | Desmond's | Channel 4 | Unknown |
| 1990–2018 | Have I Got News for You | BBC Two and BBC One | Studio 2 |
| 1991–2009 | British Comedy Awards | ITV | Studio 1 |
| 1993–2010 | GMTV | Studio 5 | |
| 1993–2004 | LNN programmes | Studio 7 | |
| 1994–1995 | Don't Forget Your Toothbrush | Channel 4 | Studio 1 |
| 1995–1998 | Father Ted | Channel 4 | |
| 1995–2005 | Jonathan Dimbleby | ITV | Studio 3 |
| 1996–1999 | Michael Barrymore's Strike It Rich | Studio 1 | |
| 1996–2018 | This Morning | Studio 8 | |
| 1998-2002 | My Kind of Music | Studio 1 | |
| 1998–2003 | SMTV Live | Studio 2 | |
| 1999–2018 | Loose Women | Studio 3 | |
| 2000–2010 | Pride of Britain Awards | Unknown | |
| 2001–2002, 2016 | Blankety Blank | Studio 1 | |
| 2002–2009, 2013–2018 | Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway | ||
| 2002 | I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! The Reunion | ||
| 2003–2018 | QI | BBC Two | |
| 2004–2005, 2007–2009, 2013–2015 | The Paul O'Grady Show | ITV and Channel 4 | Studio 2 |
| 2005–2007 | Gameshow Marathon | ITV | Studio 1 |
| 2005 | Avenue of the Stars: 50 Years of ITV | ||
| 2006–2015 | All Star Family Fortunes | ||
| 2007–2018 | The Graham Norton Show | BBC One | |
| 2007 | That's What I Call Television | ITV | |
| This Is Your Life | |||
| 2010 | The Krypton Factor | ||
| The 5 O'Clock Show | Channel 4 | Studio 3 | |
| 2010–2018 | Lorraine | ITV | |
| 2010–2014 | Daybreak | Studios 3 & 7 | |
| 2010–2011 | Paul O'Grady Live | Studio 1 | |
| 2010, 2012 | The British Soap Awards | ||
| 2010–2013 (daytime), 2011–2018 (celebrity) | The Chase | ||
| 2011–2016 | The Jonathan Ross Show | ||
| 2011–2015 | Text Santa | ||
| 2011–2014 | The Alan Titchmarsh Show | Studio 2 | |
| Let's Do Lunch with Gino & Mel | |||
| 2012–2018 | Piers Morgan's Life Stories | ||
| The Last Leg | Channel 4 | ||
| 2012–2013, 2015 | The One and Only... | ITV | Studio 1 |
| 2012 | Dale's Great Getaway | ||
| 2013, 2016–2017 | Catchphrase | Studio 2 | |
| 2013–2016 | Strictly: It Takes Two | BBC Two | Studio 7 |
| 2014–2015 | Celebrity Squares | ITV | Studio 2 |
| 2014–2015 | Miranda | BBC One | |
| 2014–2018 | BBC Two and Channel 4 | ||
| Good Morning Britain | ITV | Studio 5 | |
| 2015 | Pick Me! | Studio 2 | |
| Get Your Act Together | Studio 1 | ||
| 2016 | Go for It | Studios 1 & 2 | |
| Naked Attraction | Channel 4 | Unknown | |
| 2016–2018 | Unspun with Matt Forde | Dave | Studio 2 |
| Peston on Sunday | ITV | Studio 3 | |
| 2017 | Babushka | Studio 1 | |
| Don't Ask Me Ask Britain | Studio 2 | ||
| The Fake News Show | Channel 4 | ||
| 2017–2018 | Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule | ITV | |
| CelebAbility | ITV2 | Unknown |